Twice Told“The Tennessee Ghost”, New England Farmer, 26 January 1856
- Language
- English
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Retrieved
- 24 September 2026
A letter first printed in the Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia and copied here by the New England Farmer, a Boston weekly, with the Post’s name at the foot. The writer does not sign it in this copy. It is the oldest printed account of the Bell family’s ghost that we found, and the only one before 1880 that names Betsey Bell and Joshua Gardner.
THE TENNESSEE GHOST.
Seeing in a late Post a notice of the celebrated “Cocklane Ghost,” of London, I am reminded of another ghost of which I have not before thought for years, that made a great noise and created a tremendous excitement at the time. It made its appearance in Robertson county, Tenn., some thirty years ago, or upwards, at the house of an old Mr. Bell. Hence I call it the “Tennessee Ghost,” or perhaps I had better call it the “Bell Ghost,” as it seemed to have visited his house on account of a daughter he had, familiarly called, “Miss Betsey Bell.” It was in the form of a voice speaking in different parts of the house. It generally, as ghosts are wont to do, manifested itself only in the night; and, if I am not mistaken, the lights had all to be put out, before it would speak. It would be heard sometimes in one part of the house, and sometimes in another; moving about from the floor, under the floor, and the walls, to the beds, open space in the midst of the house, the roof, &c. The ghost would converse freely with persons; and such was the excitement it created, that the house was constantly thronged with persons from all parts of the country, coming even fifty miles or more to hear it. When asked how long it was going to remain, it would reply, “Until Joshua Gardner and Betsey Bell get married.” Now, Mr. Gardner was a very likely young man, who resided in the neighborhood, and with whom the writer of this subsequently became well acquainted. Such was the number of people who thronged the house, night after night, that they came near eating old Mr. Bell out of “house and home.”
But the thing could not last always; the spell of enchantment was destined to be broken. It turned out that Miss Betsey Bell was a ventriloquist, had, from some circumstance, become aware of the possession of such powers, had fallen in love with Mr. Gardner, and wished him to marry her, and had fallen upon this plan to bring about a matrimonial union. But Joshua Gardner and Betsey Bell never married; and the ghost at length “vanished into thin air,” as is generally the end of all ghosts. There are numbers now living, in Robertson county, Tenn., and elsewhere, who heard this ghost, and were well acquainted with the circmstances. Saturday Evening Post.
Notes
- Transcription conventions: spelling as printed, including “circmstances” in the last sentence. The printer’s long dashes (after “coun-try”, “ventriloquist”, “powers” and “her”, and before the credit line) are given here as commas or dropped, since this site prints no dashes; no words are changed. Italics follow the print.
- The page is the Farmer’s; the letter’s own first printing, in the Saturday Evening Post, is not in this file. We did not find it on the Post’s microfilm pages that we looked at, which are badly damaged.
- “Some thirty years ago, or upwards” puts the ghost around the mid-1820s or earlier, counted from 1856. The writer gives no year, does not name Mr. Bell’s first name, and never mentions a witch, a poisoning, a death or a visitor of note.
- The writer says he later came to know Joshua Gardner well, which is his only claim to inside knowledge. The explanation he gives, that Betsey was a ventriloquist trying to win Gardner, is his own conclusion; he gives no source for it.
- M. V. Ingram’s book of 1894 says a Saturday Evening Post sketch “about 1849” tried to pin the demonstrations on Betsy, and that she threatened to sue for libel. This 1856 letter is the only Post item on the Bells that we have seen.